Lady Lopes on the cusp of historic breakthrough
Grand Canyon University's women basketball team extends win streak to 29 games with dominate performance in WAC Semi-finals.
LAS VEGAS (KYMA, KECY) - Entering Saturday afternoon's tilt in the Western Athletic Conference semifinal versus Utah Valley, the Grand Canyon women's basketball team held the nation's longest winning streak in all of Division I, at 28 games.
The Lady Lopes extended that streak to 29 games with a dominate 84-55 victory led by senior guard Alyssa Durazo-Frescas' career-high 28 points.
"I owe it all to my teammates, they got me the ball," Durazo-Frescas said. "I mean yeah, it's nice to hit shots but, it's also nice that we lock down and defend and hold a team to 50."
Head coach Molly Miller interrupted with excitement.
"Guys she's talking about defense," Miller gleamed. "Let's take a moment here."
The Lopes opened the scoring with a jumper by Tiarra Brown and led wire-to-wire in the 84-55 drubbing of Utah Valley.
Durazo-Frescas and Brown were the only two Grand Canyon players to score in double digits. The rest was a well balanced attack highlighted by the defense of Callie Cooper.
"What you guys don't see if her effort in the locker room to keep these kids together. Her leadership on the court to get them fired up," Miller said. "I just want to take this moment to acknowledge Callie because I don't think she gets all the credit she deserves."
After extending the win streak to 29 games, Coach Miller was asked if the pressure to keep winning continues to percolate.
"I mean, I think, um, you would have seen that on when 25 or 20. I mean there's been pressure throughout the whole season so this team is just taking it day by day and we're always zero zero," Miller said. "So we don't feel that because of the standard we've set every day."
Grand Canyon now advances to the program's third WAC championship game in team history. They lost the previous meetings in 2021 and 2022.
With a win Saturday versus UT Arlington, not only will the Lopes achieve something no team has done before them, they'll also earn an automatic bid in to the NCAA tournament next week, another first.
